wear this hot thing around your neck

check out this great idea:

披肩

从办公室到实验室的途中在洗手间停了一下，看见镜子里的自己，黑衣服，深红披肩，松散的长卷发。说不清什么眼神。忽然想起三毛来，然后自然地想起了齐豫。

小时候读三毛，拼命地想像三毛这个人。叛逆的少年，流浪着的青年，郁郁而终的中年。我对三毛的视觉化印象主要取决于家里一盒卡带《三毛的歌》的封面。吉普塞女郎的装束，长发编成松松的发辫，倚着一头小毛驴。背景是苍茫的撒哈拉。在我的脑海里，三毛成了一种符号。《橄榄树》成了一种符号。有时候我沉浸在齐豫遥远的歌声中，憧憬着流浪的感觉，孤身一人，走着，看着，爱着，感受着，寻觅着，向往着远方。觉得浪漫得不得了。后来我真的离开了家，在陌生的国度辗转。派对之后，工作之余，安静地听着齐豫，觉得自己象是流浪着寻找梦中的橄榄树一样。不然为什么喜欢长长的卷发，买了深红的披肩，流连于孤身旅行，久久不愿回家呢？

我一直觉得齐豫有些近似三毛的气质。我常想，她离家以后，有没有也觉得自己象三毛一样在大漠里徘徊呢？不然，为什么她的装束，她的眼神，她的歌声，无一不象三毛，那么感性，执着，罗曼蒂克。她又在找什么呢？我又在找什么呢？

也许我和三毛和齐豫本来就是一个类型的人，也许三毛的书齐豫的歌一直潜移默化地影响着我。不管是什么原因，我感到一种跨越时空的共鸣，就好像michael cunningham 的 the hours里的种种必然.

橄榄树(歌词集)

作者: 三毛
　
【橄榄树】
（三毛词　李泰祥曲）
　
不要问我从哪里来
我的故乡在远方
为什么流浪
流浪远方　流浪
为了天空飞翔的小鸟
为了山间轻流的小溪
为了宽阔的草原
流浪远方　流浪
还有还有　为了梦中的橄榄树
　
不要问我从哪里来
我的故乡在远方
为什么流浪
为什么流浪远方
为了我梦中的橄榄树
　
不要问我从哪里来
我的故乡在远方
为什么流浪
流浪远方　流浪
　

what i really want in a browser

1. note taking
the only difference between reading online and reading on paper is that i can conveniently underline and doodle on paper, but not so easily on a web page. what i want is a browser based page editor. conceptually, it shouldn't be hard to build. assuming a web page has a perm link, as most web posts such as blog posts and news articles do, then the task is simply to build a meta/indexing file locally that adds notes to the web page. when the same link is visited and same web page is loaded, the meta file is superimposed onto the web page. however, the fact that many pages get updated frequently might complicate things. but i'm sure there could be a clever way of detecting differences and adding the notes accordingly.

2. horizontal tabbing
i got tired of tabbing. it keeps things neat and opened windows few, but it's really not convenient to have to flip through a stack of vertically stacked tabs. moreover, a lot of sites don't use all the space that our wide screens provide. it'll be awesome if we could have a browser that has a horizontal tabbing function. basically what i need is a browser with its field split, let's say, three ways by vertical borders, each portion including its own address bar. this way i can watch a regular sized video, read a skinny post and write something at the same time. right now i solve the problem by opening multiple windows and have them stack over each other, revealing what i need to see, but as such only one window can be active at a time. and it's annoying.

DC

thursday 1113 washington DC

i never fail to be surprised by how at home i feel in cities other than my hometown. every time i go back to singapore, i get the feeling that i'm home, just because of the ease of navigating, and knowing where to find stuff. and every time i go back to america, i feel the same way. it's the chinese city where i was born and raised that i do not recognize, or feel at home in. too many things changed and are still changing in china in general and suzhou in specific, ripping the parts i know bit by bit from the thousand year old city. after my parents had moved, i had a great deal of difficulty orienting myself when i did go home. it makes me a little melancholy sometimes, and sometimes a little at loss, but there isn't anything i could do about it, except maybe staying abroad.

so today, i woke up, googlemapped all the places i need to go, rode the t to airport, boarded a small american eagle plane, landed in DC, took the metro to metro center and found my hostel. checked in. rested. came back out, found the venue of the conference, read the program. then i felt the need for a hot drink and some solid food, so i cross the street into the starbucks, got a hot caramel apple spice and some chicken salad sandwich. (and congratulated myself for being completely comfortable.) other than being unchanging, one more thing makes the developed cities easy to adapt to. that is its uniformity. we criticize chains all the time for their streamlined operation, uniformity, lack of individuality, but we couldn't live without them. when i go into a strange american city, i'm assured that i can always find hot drinks and snacks at starbucks, that particular brand of cough syrup at walgreens and cheap shoes at payless. even if i go into a non chain restaurant, the menu is pretty as much expected. easy living.


so now i'm sitting in the starbucks opposite the royal suite where the MCCS meeting is going to be held. poster session is in about 2 hours, and there's a day of meeting tomorrow.

the thought of finally getting to the capital of america is still exciting me. especially after the election last week. for years i thought about the applicability of democracy, america being its most devout executer. unfortunately, democracy in america has been tainted with various things: easily swayed voters, lobbyists, corporations, a lack of transparency in government mechanisms, etc etc. and of course the glass ceiling. obama's victory first of all broke the glass ceiling for race to some extent. obama is not a typical african america, so it's debatable how progressive america has become. also the pressing economic issues probably played a bigger part than any other factors in this election. nevertheless, he's not a white man, and that alone still says something about this country. and of course he's smart. the change he promised brings at least some hope for the solution to the other problems. i look forward to what america is capable of in years to come. i'm counting on america to restore my confidence in democracy in reality. only when democracy can work properly here, there's a chance for it working in china. at this point i am reminded of what rickless said about democracy. " there's nothing beautiful about democracy itself", he said, "democracy only means the rule of the people. and when the people are ugly, democracy is ugly". what's america's problem? is it not enough people being educated enough to make informed choices picking their government or apathy to doing so? at least in the most recent election, apathy doesn't seem too much of a problem. i hope education in america becomes even better, and the government becomes more transparent. which are both hopeful in obama's term(s). sometimes i am a little frustrated by the nature of politics, and wishfully hope for a more synergistic political scene.

washington looks very much like new york. broad french boulevards, with large blocks of neoclassical buildings along the sides. except maybe it looks slightly more orderly, less crowded, and with many more snappily dressed executive looking people. there are more african americans and fewer latinos than all the other cities i've been to. the mix of people is what i would visualise if i had been asked to imagine a crowd of american people before i came to america, except maybe with a few more asians than i had imagined. i walked and wondered how many people i randomly run into in the streets were aspiring politicians. i wont be surprised if many of them were. what a fascinating life.

The Dresden Dolls 'Coin-Operated Boy'

Since a friend introduced me to this group, i've become somewhat obsessed with the Dresden Dolls. too bad they kind of broke up. watch this music video. I was mesmerized...

Obama's First Press Conference

it's so refreshing to have a president who looks like he knows what he's talking about...

Redneck for Obama

finally one redneck who's not fooled by mccain:
BBC's interview with Jason Hill

palin pranked by canadians

transcript here